


where do we begin (the rubble or our sins)

by procrastinatingbookworm



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, M/M, Pompeii, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 18:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11652072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Aziraphale finds Crowley sitting in the wreckage of Pompeii.or, horror leads to contemplation leads to understanding





	where do we begin (the rubble or our sins)

Aziraphale isn't there when it happens, but he feels it, and it hurts. He can't put words to the horror of it, the feeling of burning and choking and falling and a sensation that's almost peaceful and all the more horrible for it. Screaming, loud and terrified and pounding in his head. Then a terrible, terrible silence.

He doesn't realize he's sobbing until a hand touches his shoulder, some concerned mortal leaning over him, and reality rushes back to him and he scrambles to his feet and runs. And runs and runs and runs until he trips and falls and just lies there, shuddering.

 _Pompeii._ He thinks, and sees a volcano and a wall of ash and waves of heat rolling over a beach full of terrified humans, and spaces in stone, curled outlines of places humans once were, before the heat reached them. He sees a demon, standing amidst it all, face twisted in what might be laughter and might be screaming.

He opens his eyes, and has two thoughts.

_Did he do this_

and

_I need to get to him_

So he flies. Lets his wings tear the back of his coat and flies, far too fast and far too high and still shaking, flies until he can see the wall of smoke and grit and ash, dancing with sparks. He flies until the heat scorches his wings.

Then he waits.

 

When the smoke clears and the ash settles and the magma cools and the heat becomes bearable, Aziraphale flies into Pompeii.

Crowley is sitting on a pile of rubble, staring at the ground. He looks broken, yellow eyes unblinking, entirely covered in ash and worse things. Aziraphale settles beside him, rests a hand on the small of his back. They sit in the terrible silence for a long time.

 

"Did you do this?" The angel asks, eventually, and Crowley makes a sound that's more a sob than the scoff he must have wanted it to be. His head turns just slightly, and Aziraphale sees the clean lines cutting through the ash on the demon's cheeks. His expression is full of emotion the angel can't put a name to.

"No." There's something in Crowley's voice that suggests he might be hurt if he wasn't to tired to muster anything other than despair. "No, I wasss jusssst here. Visssiting. There'sss a niccce-" his voice shatters into a whining, lisping sob, and he takes a moment to pull himself together, continuing in a whisper. "There  _wasss_ a nicccce cafe. Good wine." A broken laugh. "We went, onccce? Remember?" His voice cracks in the middle of the word. His lisp is heavy, fangs starting to curl over his bottom lip, scales creeping up his ankles and neck. Reverting, losing focus.

 

"Crowley..." Aziraphale whispers, horror creeping into his voice. "I felt this. I was halfway across the _world_ and I felt it. You were right here." He swallows. The demon won't look at him. "You were  _right here._ Did you-?"

"Yessss, I fucking felt it!" Crowley hisses, in a tone that's trying for malice and breaking into miserable terror before it gets there. He still doesn't look up, staring determinedly at something between his feet, hunched and shaking, defeat written into him like so much ash and blood. There's a long silence before he speaks again, just echoing his own words, quieter now, with something that's almost guilt. "I felt it."

"Crowley-"

"Ssshut up, angel. Sshut up. Ssssshut up." Aziraphale chokes on a horrible laugh, his whole body heaving with the sick hilarity of it all, because it  _is_ guilt, seeping into Crowley's voice. Demons aren't supposed to feel guilt. Or love, or fear of consequences, or despair.

And yet.

 

After a long, miserable silence, Aziraphale notices, belatedly, that Crowley's stare isn't lost, it's focused. He reaches over and picks up the object resting in Crowley's sight-line, peering through the smoke to examine it.

It's a doll. A child's doll, charred on one side and missing a button eye, rope hair and canvas clothes askew.

"I dropped her."

"What?" The angel asks, in confusion and misery and fear.

Crowley blinks for the first time. His expression twists. "I dropped her. Ssssshe was running, alone and sssscared and I picked her up and ssshhhee wouldn't be ssstill, little  _bitch_ , I was trying to sssave her and ssshe writhed and sssscreamed and  _fell._ " 

Aziraphale stares. Just sits and stares until he realizes how rude it is and looks away. He keeps his hand on the demon's back, lets him breathe in ash until he's calm again.

"You tried to do the right thing." The angel says. "You  _did_ do the right thing, no matter how little came of it. That's enough."

Crowley scoffs quietly. He's not recovering himself, Aziraphale can see that plainly, but he's pretending to. "Well, it's the firssst and lassst time, angel, if thisss is what the right thing resssultsss in."

"Is it really the first?" Aziraphale asks, and it's the wrong thing to say. Everything is the wrong thing to say, with Crowley like this, miserable and traumatized and full of guilt for having lived.

Crowley makes a sound that wants to be affirmative, but really just sounds sad. Tired.

"I thought you considered the forbidden fruit a gift to humanity, and thus a good deed." This, the angel knows, as soon as he says it, is worse.

 

There's another horrible pause. Crowley, very slowly, reaches over and takes the doll from Aziraphale's hands.

Slower still, he speaks. "Do you think... thisss wouldn't have happened... if I hadn't...?"

"I don't think anything would have happened. And I don't think that would have been a good thing."

Crowley doesn't say anything. His eyes are red-rimmed, and glassy. He looks wretched, exhausted, utterly beaten. It makes Aziraphale's breath catch, and the demon looks at him, blinking slowly, snakelike. Then, amazingly, the corner of his mouth curls up, a flash of a genuine smile. "That's funny, isn't it? In tempting them to do evil, I also gave them the capability to do good. Funny." He looks around, and the smile falls. "This is so human."

"They didn't..." Aziraphale starts, and Crowley  _laughs._ It's a horrible sound, grating and broken and somehow full of mirth and misery at once.

" _We_ didn't." He says, his eyes manic, and the angel understands, and hates the truth of it with such passion that it burns. Crowley laughs again, horribly, and rests his forehead on Aziraphale's shoulder. There's nothing to say, so they don't speak, just sit and shiver. The heat is oppressive, the ache of silenced screams is worse. Somewhere in the chaos, there was kindness. This, in its simplicity, is enough.

 

"Do you think He planned this?" Aziraphale asks, eventually.

"You're asking me?" Crowley almost manages amusement. A creature of Heaven asking a creature of Hell about the nature of God.

"Just your opinion."

"I don't think He plans anything. Not anything like this. And I think that's the point."

A long pause, more thoughtful than miserable this time.

"Do you think they deserved it?" The demon asks.

Aziraphale closes his eyes. "They must have." Then again, in a whisper: "They must have."

 

Crowley clutches the doll in one hand and rests himself against Aziraphale's side, staring out at the ruins. Silently, he takes the angel's hand.

This, in its simplicity, is enough.


End file.
